Women and Chemicals

Women’s health under threat
Infertility
Impaired fertility or infertility includes the difficulty or inability
to get pregnant and/or carry a pregnancy to full term. It is difficult
to determine exactly how many people experience impaired
fertility. Overall there are more studies about male than
female infertility due to the difficulty in finding the right endpoints
and measurement techniques. The percentage of women
in the US who have difficulty in achieving and maintaining
pregnancy has increased between 1982 to 2002. 29 The main
increase over the last two decades is among women under the
age of 25. 30 There are various causes of impaired fertility. “A
woman´s fertility depends on several body parts working together
to produce and transport a healthy egg and nurture the
developing foetus. Conception and foetal health also depend
on the quality of the father´s sperm.” 31 Disorders, which can impair
fertility, include abnormal numbers of chromosomes in the
eggs, menstrual irregularities, polycystic ovarian failure, and
disorders associated with pregnancy, of which the three most
common are miscarriage, preeclampsia, and intrauterine
growth restriction. Studies have linked fertility problems to exposure
to chemicals like DDT, DES, BPA, cigarette smoke and
PCBs, and chlorinated hydrocarbons (includes PCBs, some pesticides,
dioxins and furans), disinfection by-products, ethylene
oxide, glycol ethers, heavy metals, pesticides, phthalates, solvents,
PFOS and PFOA, octylphenol and nonylphenol. 32
These chemicals are linked to infertility directly or to various
diseases which can lead to infertility among women. One
example is endometriosis, a chronic disease where tissue,
which lines the uterus, grows abnormally in other locations.
This can cause infertility, inflammation and pain. Estimates for
the incidence of endometriosis vary. Most of them find that between
10 and 15 per cent of reproductive-age women have
endometriosis. 46 Animal studies show a clear link between endometriosis
and exposure to organochlorine compounds. A
few studies link endometriosis in humans with dioxin, phthalates
and PCBs. 47
Male infertility is also influenced by chemical exposure.
More information can be found in the WHO and UNEP “State of
the Science Report on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals”, and in
the ChemTrust report “Male reproductive health disorders and
the potential role of exposure to environmental chemicals”. 48
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